Kennesaw Mountain Hike

120 min. hike
8 miles

After waking up way too early to take Jordan to the airport, I met my friend Christina at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield for a hike/powerwalk along the trails. This was somewhat of a weekly routing of ours when I lived in Atlanta before, and on the drive over I was reflecting on how both our lives have changed since then. Two years ago I was working for Mizuno and she was a running specialist at Dick's Sporting Goods. Now she's married and has my old job at Miz while I'm back in the ATL and reppin' it up for Brooks, not to mention so many other things that have happened in our lives since then. It's funny how so much can change and yet so much can stay the same...

But I digress. Back to the hike. Let me preface this by saying what we do out there isn't your grandma's power walk (and there wasn't a New Balance shoe between us). It's a consistent 4-4.5mph trek over rough and hilly terrain, and it gets pretty intense pretty quickly. Today it got particularly intense when a spider pounced on my ankle about 15 minutes in and gave me a nice little love bite. Granted, this pales in comparison to Jilane's rabid dog attack from yesterday, but nonetheless I was expecting to start convulsing and seeing spots at any moment. I must not be allergic, because I've lived to tell you all about it, but my throbbing ankle was not a happy camper for much of the walk. Also, I don't care what anyone says; walking is no joke and it works your muscles if you're not used to it. By the time we turned around at halfway, everything from my lower back to my feet was aching. We both hit the wall at about 90 minutes and couldn't have been more grateful to see the visitor center parking lot come into view.


A clearing along the Kennesaw Mountain trail

Despite the aggressive insects and my aching muscles, I really enjoyed taking a day off from running--my first since this cycle began six weeks ago--and spending some time with a good friend. It's nice to skip a day and not feel pressured to have to make it up or worry about how it will affect my total mileage for the week.